(no subject)

[novapsyche]

I ran across this post.

I have a lot of friends who take meds, and I work with someone who does, too. I have other friends who should take their meds, but went off of them intentionally. My sister, in fact, is bipolar, but doesn't take her meds. As someone who isn't on meds, I can't speak to what they do or how they affect you.

But I was struck by his reason: my taking medication is for the benefit of others not for myself. Do you agree with that line of reasoning?

Comments

[kali-ma.livejournal.com]

I took medication for the benefit of other people for quite some time. In fact, I had a girlfriend who used various emotional blackmail tactics to get me to take medication, often implying that I had no clue how horrible my behavior was. SSRI's are addictive. If you forget to take them for a day, you feel very emotionally distraught and off balance - then when you realize you haven't taken your meds and mention it, people around you say "Oh, see? You really need those meds!" Without realizing it is a wothdrawal effect and not the person's normal behavior.
Societally we are being conditioned to believe that anyone who behaves "oddly" is mentally ill and needs drugs. Ever hear someone joke about someone who did something they thought was odd and say "Well, THEy need medication!" or some similar sentiment? That's the first thing anyone thinks.
I think mental "illness" is very overdiagnosed. There are ads out for psychotropic drugs now, as if bad moods were some sort of headache that you can take a pill for and make go away. There are ads for expensive clinics that say things like, "Is your child unusually restless? Does he fidget a lot? Does he have an elevated mood some days and appear very moody other days?" And I think, this describes a normal growing 13 year old boy with a huge new rush of testosterone, doesn't it?
It's all very disturbing to me. I've been through a nightmare of drugs and negative effects suffered from them, drugs I never would have taken if I didn't have well-meaning "friends" urging me to go to the doctor and take "something". I've also seen healhy children be forcibly put on drugs and become little psychiatric basket cases. I've seen people who seemed basically interesting but with a few neuroses go on drugs at a freinds request and become basicly zombies who express no opinion or creativity at all, and therefore were cosidered to be doing well because they didn't bother anyone anymore (because they just sat there zoning out all the time.) So I guess I would say I agree with her.

(Sorry about the rant! This is a sore subject with me!)